Committee for Legislation Against Moneylaundering in Properties by Kleptocrats

cordially invites

selected media representatives

to a special Kleptocracy Tour with added

Unexplained Wealth Orders

on the afternoon of April 27th in central London.

The Criminal Finances Bill is a significant milestone in the history of UK law making and represents a new chapter in the global fight against corruption and kleptocracy. The Bill opens the way forBritish law enforcement agencies to seize the UK assets of dictators and rights abusers, irrespective of where in the world offences are committed.

The essential component of the Bill is the Human Rights Abusers Assets Freeze Amendment – otherwise known as the ‘Magnitsky Amendment’. We are honoured to be joined by the authors of the amendment – Rt Hon Dame Margaret Hodge and leader of the global Magnitsky Justice Campaign Bill Browder – who will talk about the amendment, its role in prosecuting kleptocrats, and how it will apply to existing cases.

On this special Kleptocracy Tour, your guides will be:Oliver Bullough journalist and author of The Last Man in Russia;Dr Andrew Foxall Russia Studies Centre at The Henry Jackson Society;Luke Harding journalist and author of A Very Expensive Poison;Dr Ala’a Shehabi economist and writer, co-founder of Bahrein Watch;Matthew Page U.S. intelligence community’s top expert on Nigeria;Roman Borisovich ClampK founder, From Russia With Cash documentary

The guest speaker will be Professor Steve Keen of Kingston University. In addition, representatives of Transparency International, Global Witness, and ClampK, leaders of the campaign for transparency of global offshore tax havens, will attend.

The Tour around central London will be conducted from the comfort of a luxury coach.

The tour runs from 15.00 till until approximately 17.00.
Details of departure point will be supplied to those
RSVP’ing to ClampK at ‘campaigns@clampk.org’

The Criminal Finances Bill together with the Magnitsky amendment form the cornerstone of the new anti money laundering regime in the UK.

Now if law enforcement agencies have reasonable grounds to suspect that someone has benefited from illegal activities they will be able to apply for a court order requiring that person to explain the origin of assets worth over 100,000 which appear disproportionate to their known income. Failing to provide an adequate explanation will lead to a rebuttable presumption that the asset in question was obtained through unlawful conduct and can be treated as “recoverable property” under the existing civil recovery powers in POCA.

In a similar fashion the government can freeze the assets of someone who has been involved in a human rights violations in a foreign country provided that if a similar offence were committed in the UK it would be criminal. We welcome the introduction of Unexplained Wealth Orders and human rights abusers asset freezes, expecting the government to start enforcing these measures by the end of this year.

However, this legislation is incomplete without the requirement for mandatory disclosure of the beneficiaries of offshore companies holding properties and other assets in the UK. So that money launderers and human rights abusers cannot hide behind anonymous offshore companies, the government should deliver the relevant law as soon as possible.

The work started by the consultations on property ownership last April should be completed in the manner agreed then, which will make the UK anti money laundering legislation the most comprehensive and robust in the world. Nonetheless even the toughest laws and regulations will prove ineffective without their enforcement. We need to see prosecutions with real cases tried in courts and results being delivered.

In the meantime we would like to thank our supporters in Parliament who made very helpful contributions including; Dame Margaret Hodge, Dominic Raab, Tom Brake, Douglas Carswell, Ian Blackford, Sir Eric Pickles.

The campaigning organisations TransparencyInternational, Christian Aid, Global Witness and the Anti-Corruption APPG gave invaluable support throughout our efforts and were welcoming and encouraging of this insurgent effort.

Tomorrow the MPs will vote on the final 3rd reading of the Criminal Finances Bill.

The Magnitsky amendment by Hodge/Raab is remarkably simple: it allows the government and members of the public to go to the UK court against violations of human rights which occur outside of the UK but if were committed in the UK would have been illegal. Based on this very straightforward test the UK court can freeze assets of the foreign perpetrators of human rights violations.

Given the support the amendment received in the Parliament and in the media, it is not surprising that the government has come out with their own version of the amendment drafted by the Home Office. Mrs Rudd’s version is better drafted and would be totally acceptable except for one critical issue: the Home Office proposal makes the right to pursue foreign human rights abusers solely the prerogative of the government.

We wholeheartedly welcome the changes to the anti money laundering regime the Bill will make and especially the human rights abusers assets freeze amendment – a robust and powerful clause creating a UK equivalent of the US Magnitsky Law (“The Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012”). We are pleased to note Secretary’s Rudd assurances that the Criminal Finances Bill (CFB) will receive Royal Assent this Spring and that its provisions will come into force later this year. But there is one final effort we need to deliver – urge the MPs to vote for the amendment introduced by Margaret Hodge and Dom Raab and supported by a large cross-party group.

ClampK firmly believes that the ability of general public to challenge foreign human rights violations is an integral part of the political freedoms of the United Kingdom similar to the right of every British citizen to report and pursue in court human rights abuse should it happen in this country.

WE URGE MPS TO VOTE FOR THE HODGE/RAAB VERSION OF THE MAGNITSKY AMENDMENT

Over at Kleptocracy Tours are the details of a tour for June 10th of Oxford, with substantial input from and about Cambridge, highlighting the links both universities have with foreign money of dubious origin.

Please, be aware that this will a walking tour of Oxford and a sitting tour of Cambridge and will not, unlike the London tours, be on a coach. The walking part will consist of a 45min/1hour guided walk around Oxford and then we will sitting down in a private venue for a verbal tour of similar locations in Cambridge and for an open and general discussion of the ramifications and implications of these phenomena.

Head on over there for details of the tour and of how to apply for seats.

Again, thank you all for making the Kleptocracy Tours the resounding media sucess that they were.

We are very happy with the position announced by the Cabinet Office as to what the UK Govt. thinks the new legislative arrangements should be. Your participation and reportage contributed significantly to this change.

We will be reviewing what our next steps should be over the next week or so in the light of these announced changes.

We are conscious of how many of you would like to see further tours and we will announce here how we intend to make this happen.

The 7 tours of the 2nd Kleptocracy Tours finished last week on the same day as the Global Anti-Corruption Summit was taking place in London.
Thank you all for coming. Our special thanks go to those who were our guides to the London sites of the proceeds of kleptocracy and the background to those sites.

We asked for contributions from members of the public on those tours that were open to the public (Wed and Thur only).

In the interests of the transparency we are asking for, we want to report that we were generously supported by those people to the tune of 440Stg. We tipped the bus drivers 150Stg and we have spent 220Stg on trademarking the name ‘Kleptocracy Tours’ for the purpose of protecting the idea from unscrupulous exploitation. We have spent about 50Stg on printed materials and on domain name registrations. So we are pretty much at a ‘wash’ on the cash contributions.

Some of these tours, which were reserved for staff and guests of particular NGOs, were paid for by those NGOs. All of the rest of these tours and the earlier ones were paid for by the Campaign and there were no other contributions sought or received.

There will be two tours on Mon and Tues and Thurs and one on Wed morning. The times will be at 0930 and 1400.

It’s by invite only so please write to ‘campaigns at clampk.org’ for a place. There are still places available for Wednesday and there is limited availability on other days.

We’re very grateful for the support of several of the organisations in our coalition in sponsoring some of the trips. Any support that you might care to give on the day will also be greatly appreciated as we are funding this out of our own pockets.

The Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills announced the long awaited consultation on the issue of money laundering through residential property on March 4th with an original closing of April 1st, which was later extended to April 4th.

ClampK collaborated with our campaign partners in ensuring a coherent and comprehensive set of responses and we would like to thank them for that happy and effective work process.

Luxury real estate in prime locations around the globe such as London, New York, Cote d’Azur and Singapore is quickly becoming the bitcoin of world kleptocracy. Hundreds of billions of dollars stolen from the world’s neediest nations are being invested in penthouses, mansions, villas and castles. All of this is being made possible by the use of anonymous companies in exotic offshore jurisdictions, allowing the real owners of these properties to remain unknown.

Kleptocracy Tours will shine a light on the owners, their lavish properties and the sources of their wealth. It will unmask the enablers who help bring proceeds of corruption into our countries. The tour will feature prominent anti-corruption experts – journalists, writers and investigators – as your tour guides, telling you the stories of ill-gotten wealth and answering your questions.

This inaugural tour of London will travel through Whitehall, Knightsbridge, South Kensington and its ‘Billionaire’s Row’, Hampstead, Highgate, and finish in Baker Street. Your tour guides will be: